My newest mixtape is entitled “The Labour & The Shame”; for me it was a way to process the feelings I have about working in the videogame industry. Side ‘L’ imagines the PoV of labourers: It’s full of reminders to protect yourself whilst creating art for money (and reminders about why we sought out creative work in the first place). Side ‘S’ imagines, often from a first person PoV, the class of executives & boss guys from whom we need protection… you know the ones.
Running all through this mixtape are tracks from Gentle Giant’s “The Power & The Glory”, which is a concept album about how power reveals things. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately! In the ‘seeking power’ stage, the antihero of this record cloaks themself in altruism (paying lip service to whatever ideals their community wants them to have); but later, in the ‘having power’ stage, the actions they take begin revealing that special sort of villainy that we can locate within executives or politicians etc.
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